Alan Wong

According to a Chinese food survey(1), three out of five people say that Chinese is their favorite food, easily beating out traditional roasts and Italian cuisine. However, the same survey also found that most Americans cannot distinguish authentic dishes from the creations made to suit Western tastes. “One of my favorite findings from that same survey is that 64 percent of Americans believe that chop suey is Chinese in origin,” says Allen Wong, general manger of Kung Fu Plaza, an authentic family-owned Chinese and Thai restaurant in Las Vegas. “Chop suey is a Chinese-American creation that came about some time in the mid or late 19th century.” Wong said there is nothing wrong with thinking chop suey has native origins, but he does wish...

Kung Fu Plaza began offering free WiFi for patrons last February. WiFi passwords are posted on two social networks, Facebook and Twitter. “We began experimenting with social media and social networks to give something back to our new friends,” said Alan Wong, general manager of Kung Fu Plaza. “We were inspired by their feedback and are especially grateful for the people who have left reviews, which helped us become 2010 and 2011 Talk of the Town Award recipients.” Talk of the Town bases ratings on a compilation of more than a dozen different customer review sites, including Yelp, Insider Pages, Angie’s List, Google Maps, Google Places, City Search, Yahoo Local, Merchant Circle, Judy’s Book, Respond, and Enetez. Kung Fu Plaza is the only Asian restaurant...

Kung Fu Plaza, which is the oldest and most authentic Thai restaurant in Las Vegas, has become the first Asian restaurant to become a Certified Angus Beef licensee among Las Vegas restaurants. The certification was approved after a six-month review process by Sysco. Sysco is one of the largest food distributors in the world, with 89 broad-line operating companies distributing a full line of food products and non-products. The company also distributes a wide variety of specialty fresh-from-the-field flavor to kitchens and restaurants. This includes custom-cut steaks and other meat. “The certifying company reviewed our purchases for six months and visited our establishment during this period to make sure we were only using certified beef products,” said Alan Wong, general manager of Kung Fu...

Happy Chinese New Year! As we enter into the Year of the Dragon, everyone is looking forward to a bright and prosperous year ahead. The Year of the Dragon is the luckiest year in the Chinese zodiac and this one is even better. “This Year of the Dragon also aligns with the water element, which represents intelligence and wisdom,” says Alan Wong, general manager of the restaurant Kung Fu Plaza in Las Vegas. “In feng shui, water also represents luck and money, making the rest of 2012 and the beginning of 2013 especially promising.” As the longest and most important festivity in the Chinese calendar, many countries all over Asia will be celebrating and observing traditions during the 15-day celebration. China, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia,...

If you follow any cooks and chefs whatsoever, you probably have heard the name Paula Deen. She is a Savannah, Georgia, caterer turned restaurateur turned cooking show host. She has had several shows in fact, including Paula’s Home Cooking and Paula’s Party. The initial appeal of Deen was her rags to riches story. After her husband left her, she started a catering business in Savannah for $200 that primarily sold sack-lunches. They were so popular that she saved up enough money to open a restaurant in early 1990 before landing her own homestyle cooking show. But just because Deen is the queen of Southern cooking and anti-chef of the Food Network (being self-taught), that doesn’t mean she eats fried food daily. In fact, although...

There is plenty of buzz surrounding the opening of Pok Pok in New York City, which is the Thai restaurant owned by James Beard Award-winning chef Andy Ricker. New York seems excited. It started in Portland a few years ago when Ricker decided to bring a taste of Southeast Asia (North and Northeast Thailand) to Portland. The creations he made were surprisingly good for a non-Thai native, but maybe not surprising for someone who has studied the cuisine for 20 years in Thailand. It’s not uncommon for him to invest as much as one full year learning a single dish. And this is very likely the reason The New York Times called Ricker the ambassador for Thai food in the United States. “It might...

When KungFu Restaurant was founded in 1973 on 3rd and Fremont street in downtown Las Vegas, we had enough seats for 25 guests and a takeout counter. Back then Las Vegas was very different. Everyone who came to Vegas visited Downtown, Nixon was in office, Bruce Lee became the first Asian starring in a lead Motion Picture production film “Enter the Dragon”, and people thought Thai was something you wore around your neck. But Chinese? Almost everyone knew China, and that to enjoy Chinese cuisine meant you had to eat rice with chopsticks. Thanks to Bruce everyone started to practice “Kung Fu” thinking it was some kind of an ancient warrior dance. Little does the average person realize that “Kung Fu” – or “Gong...